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MetroParks nonprofit groups to meet today
YOUNGSTOWN
The future of fundraising for Mill Creek MetroParks will be the theme of a private meeting today between two groups whose mission is to provide financial support to the park system.
Friends of Fellows Riverside Gardens – the nonprofit organization that supports the MetroParks’ botanical gardens – and the Mill Creek Park Foundation, as well as MetroParks officials who have been invited to the event, will hear this afternoon from Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a nonprofit group that supports that park.
Andrew Detesco, president of the park foundation, described the meeting as a chance to learn from the Cuyahoga group, which he said has had remarkable success in fulfilling its mission.
“We’re learning from some very experienced people who run a very successful park,” he said. “They’ve become a very successful organization, through a lot of hard work, in a relatively short period of time. That kind of advice, if it’s so close, we shouldn’t ignore it. ... That’s what the whole meeting is about.”
Another topic of discussion, representatives for the park foundation and Friends of Fellows acknowledged, will be the future relationship between those two groups.
A focus of the meeting, Friends president Paul Hagman told The Vindicator, will be: “Are we stronger if we’re more in tune with each other, as opposed to having two mostly separate entities?”
Asked about rumors that the two groups are looking to merge, neither Hagman nor Detesco denied the possibility, but said it’s far from decided.
“It’s absolutely premature to say there’s going to be a merging of the two. This is kind of getting filed under, ‘Are we stronger together, than separate?’” Hagman said. “It’s a conversation about, ‘Is this worth pursuing, and what are the questions we need to ask our boards and our members before deciding what we need to pursue.’”
He said there is now some overlap between the two groups’ operations, and they are in talks to coordinate more closely in those areas.
Detesco readily acknowledged that the two groups are looking to work more closely together.
He said of a possible merger: “If that’s beneficial for the park, then the conversation should continue, but that’s the only reason it would.”
Invited to the meeting are the boards of Friends and the park foundation, as well as Mill Creek MetroParks board members. MetroParks Executive Director Aaron Young is invited, as are any staff members he wishes to bring along, Hagman said.
Immediate action is not expected to come out of the meeting.
“The goal with this meeting is to have a chance to sit around the table together and list the questions we then need to go out to answer,” Hagman said. “It’s a chance for us to better understand what we don’t know.”